New ‘Virtual Care Center’ Choreographs Post-Discharge Care

As hospitals around the country work hard at winnowing down readmission rates, a new grant from the Greater Rochester Health Foundation (Health Foundation) will give URMC’s Strong Memorial Hospital the chance to try a fresh approach: A “virtual care center.”

Representing a nearly $600,000 investment over three years by the Health Foundation, the center homes in on the precarious 30-day post-hospital period, virtually shepherding some of Rochester’s most vulnerable patients as they move into community- or home-care settings.

“By micromanaging this transition period for a set of patients, investigators hope to curb readmissions that squander community resources, threaten emergency room access, and drive up care costs,” said principal investigator Marc Berliant, M.D., chief of URMC’s General Medicine division.

Marc Berliant, M.D.

Avoidable readmissions are unnerving for patients; they’re also expensive for hospitals, robbing them of revenue, reputation and market share. By Oct. 2014, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) will be withholding up to 3 percent of URMC’s total overall reimbursement payments, and only dispersing the money back if readmission rates remain low.

The Health foundation grant allows Strong to take a hard, close look at the first month-long window after a patient is discharged. Berliant says this 30-day period is fraught with so many challenges, some physicians argue it qualifies as a distinct disease state all on its own.

“Numerous medications, slow-moving recuperation, and the sheer anxiety on suddenly managing care on their own can make patients susceptible to relapses that land them back in the hospital,” Berliant said.

Though some readmissions are expected, even planned, as the natural course of treatment, some are considered avoidable—often rooted in problems like poor communication, poor health literacy, medication mix-ups (it’s not infrequent that patients leave with 20 or more prescriptions), insufficient patient social supports, and more.

“Together, these readmissions aggravate America’s rising health care costs,” said John Urban, president and CEO of the Health Foundation. “We are pleased to invest in a program designed to curtail these avoidable admissions. A 2009 study showed that one in five Medicare beneficiaries winds up re-hospitalized within 30 days of their discharge—to the tune of $17 billion annually. The same year, in Monroe County, a Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency report estimated that 11 percent of all hospital admissions locally were preventable readmissions.”

A ‘Virtual’ Unit?

Starting this coming October, Berliant, together with collaborators URMC Pharmacy Director Curt Haas, Pharm.D., and President and CEO of Visiting Nurse Service Victoria Hines, will launch a “virtual care center” (VCC) model on two of Strong Memorial’s onsite general medicine units. At intake, a full-time VCC leader (with a social work background) will notify qualifying high-risk, chronically ill patients that they are being simultaneously “admitted” to a VCC that, invisibly, hustles to engineer a smooth transition to out-of-hospital care or self-care.

So what’s happening behind the scenes? For starters, meticulous management of medications by the VCC’s dedicated, part-time pharmacist. That means reconciling which prescriptions are active and which should be discontinued, making sure all items get filled, paid for and picked up—and that the patient knows how and when to take them.

Also, during the hospital stay, the VCC leader actively registers the patient for URMC’s patient portal, MyChart, showing them how to leverage it to monitor upcoming appointments, caregiver messages, and more.

Besides pulling down readmission rates—the pilot targets a 20 percent reduction over three years for the enrolled population—other objectives are embedded as well. These include reducing emergency department visits, observational stays, and susceptibility to poor outcomes; improving access to medications after discharge; and measurably improving patients’ engagement in and satisfaction with their own recovery experiences.

Grant collaborators include URMC’s Center for Primary Care, social work team, and Strong Internal Medicine clinic, as well as the financial support and commitment of MVP and Excellus, who will share claims data, as necessary, to validate progress.

Berliant says similar virtual care models have been trialed in the United Kingdom and Canada, but results are still being analyzed. If Rochester’s VCC pilot indeed moves the needle—saving costs and sparing readmissions—it could be a beacon program for other communities.

“If this works, it would be one of the first interventions to show how tight, proactive care management programs can succeed—generating the kinds of cost savings and illness avoidance needed to pay for themselves.”